About a year ago I stopped making regular updates to this blog to concentrate on my Namnesia Antidote blog. While that is an ongoing effort, I am starting what should be about a year long effort to revitalize the concept of a "This Day in History" blog. I have decided to leave this blog intact and as-is, using a new "This Day in History 2.0" blog for my expanded and full version. Please feel free to email with your ideas. The two tables below should allow you to find a posting for the "Day in History" you wish to research.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

October 3......

October 3 is the 276th (277th in leap years) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 89 days remaining in the year on this date.

Best Liberal Quote of the Day: On Families "Unless we work to strengthen the family, to create conditions under which most parents will stay together, all the rest, schools, playgrounds, and public assistance, and private concern, will never be enough." — Lyndon B. Johnson

Stupidest and/or Scariest Quote from the Right for the Day: On Love Thy Neighbor "I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good." — Randall Terry {Terry is the founder and president of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, that openly advocates violence against abortion providers.}

Dumbest Thing Said for the Day: From Politics "I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce." — J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director {If anything oral-genital intimacy would seem more likely to promote interstate commerce.}

{Disclaimer: I have attempted to give credit to the many different sources that I get entries. Any failure to do so is unintentional. Any statement enclosed by brackets like these are the opinion of the blogger, A Proud Liberal.}

● 1283 - Dafydd ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd in Wales, becomes the first person executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered.

● 1574 - The Siege of Leiden is lifted by the Watergeuzen.

● 1712 - The Duke of Montrose issues a warrant for the arrest of Rob Roy MacGregor.

● 1739 - The Treaty of Nissa is signed by the Ottoman Empire and Russia at the end of the Russian-Turkish War, 1736-1739.

● 1778 - British Captain James Cook anchors in Alaska.

● 1795 - General Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence being named to defend the French National Convention against armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the three year old revolutionary government.

● 1838 - Chief Blackhawk, Native American leader, dies.

● 1849 - During electioneering in Baltimore, Edgar Allan Poe is kept drunk by a gang of political hacks who have him vote repeatedly at the polls; in four days he is dead. {to write never more}

● 1863 - Thanksgiving Day declared as the fourth Thursday in November by President Abraham Lincoln.

● 1866 - 250 die as the steamer Evening Star, en route from New York City to New Orleans, founders at sea.

● 1873 - Captain Jack and companions are hanged for their part in the Modoc War.

● 1881 - Birth of Louis Bara, Denain. French anarchist, anti-militarist who does prison time for his outspokenness. Collaborator in the anti-militarist newspaper "The Social War. "

● 1942 - Spaceflight: First successful launch of a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany: the first man-made object to reach space.

● 1945 - Seven-state Greyhound bus strike.

● 1952 - United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon. {Strangely, the US does not threaten invasion and regime change to stop the spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction.}

● 1953 - Petrobras is founded by the Brazilian government.

● 1955 - Captain Kangaroo debuts on CBS and The Mickey Mouse Club debuts on ABC. {I always preferred the Captain's lower key, less profit driven approach. The exception of course was that Annette was one hot babe.}

● 1968 - Vice-presidential candidate Curtis LeMay, on the American Independent Party ticket with George Wallace, urges use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam. His party gets nearly 10 million votes. The architect of the Strategic Air Command says, regarding North Vietnam, "We should stop swatting flies and go after the manure pile."

● 1981 - A hunger strike by Irish nationalists at the Maze Prison in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is called off after seven months and 10 deaths. Imprisoned Irish Republic Army leader Bobby Sands initiated the protest on March 1--the fifth anniversary of the British policy of "Criminalisation" of Irish political prisoners. Prior to 1976, Irish political prisoners were incarcerated in British prisons under "Special Category Status," which granted them a number of privileges that ordinary criminals did not enjoy. Despite Sands' election as MP from Fermanagh and South Tyrone after the first month of his hunger strike, and his subsequent death from starvation a month later, the government of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher would not give in, and nine more Irish perished before the strike was called off. In the aftermath, the British government quietly concedes to some of the strikers' demands, such as the rights to wear civilian clothing, to associate with each other, to receive mail and visits, and to not be penalized for refusing prison work.

● 1981 - The Communist Party of Namibia is founded at a conference in Angola.

● 1990 - A Florida record store owner is found guilty of distributing obscene material - 2 Live Crew's "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" LP.

● 1990 - Re-unification of Germany. The German Democratic Republic ceased to exist and its territory became part of the Federal Republic of Germany. East German citizens became part of the European Community, which later became the European Union. Nearly a million people gather at the Reichstag in Berlin, and at midnight a replica of the Liberty Bell, a gift from the United States, is rung, officially proclaiming reunification. Now celebrated as German Unity Day.

● 1993 - Battle of Mogadishu: In an attempt to capture officials of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's organisation in Mogadishu, Somalia, 18 US Soldiers and about 1,000 Somalis are killed in heavy fighting.

● 1995 - O.J. Simpson, domestic violence poster boy and former football star, is acquitted of the 1994 murder of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles, California. The sensational case triggered a media frenzy and raised--without answering--difficult questions of race, gender, and class. {Setting back race relations by decades in Southern California and exposing the class disparities the criminal justice system.}

BIRTHS

● 1716 - Giovanni Battista Beccaria, Italian physicist (d. 1781)

● 1720 - Johann Peter Uz, German poet (d. 1796)

● 1790 - John Ross, Chief of the Cherokee Nation (d. 1866)

● 1792 - Francisco Morazán, Central American statesman

● 1797 - Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1870)

● 1800 - George Bancroft, American historian and Secretary of the Navy (d. 1891)

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About Me

Life long Liberal. Actually saw JFK on campaign trail. Defining moment of my life was the assassination of JFK. First presidential election I participated in was knocking on doors for McGovern, have been tilting at windmills ever since.